BLAME IT ON BATY

BLAME IT ON BATY & HIS KICK-ASS OPTIMISM

You can blame it on Chris Baty. He'll encourage you to get 50,000 words down on paper in 30 days. You'll wind up with a really rough, poorly written draft novel. If you do that much, its something other writers only dream about.

Chris Baty founded NaNoWriMo (National Writing Novel Month) in 1999. This November marathon that began with 21 people working on laptops in a San Francisco coffee shop now attracts over 300,000 onlne participants each fall.

"The world is a lot more fun when you approach it with an exuberant imperfection," Chris Baty says.

And you just might have a blast. Whether you sign up online at the NaNoWriMo site or simply decide to do it on your own, it's worth the trouble. Not only did i manage to get my 1,500-2,000 words written each day in past Novembers, I got  really into this endeavor and was motivated to continue.

Baty says, "I found myself realizing that the thing separating people from their artistic dreams is not a lack of talent, it’s a lack of deadline and structure."

And it's having a deadline and some structure that makes it work for those of us who put off doing the inevitable: getting that rough draft down on paper.

"A deadline is, simply put, optimism in its most kick-ass form," Baty says. "It's a potent force that, when wielded with respect, will level any obstacle in its path. This is especially true when it comes to creative pursuits.”

Anne Lamott, author of the seminal, Bird by Bird, encourages us to go ahead and write shitty first drafts and not expect perfect writing to simply flow out right away, but we must write regularly whether we feel like it or not and whether we think what we're writing is any good or not.

It doesn't matter. We are writers and so we must write.

When we get stuck, we must work on our elevator pitch or develop our theme or incite change.

Chris Baty, author of No Plot? No Problem,  says, "Incite change. If your story is losing momentum, juice it up by inflicting some major changes on your characters. Crash the spaceship. End the marriage. Buy the monkey. Change is scary because we have to figure out what comes next. But feeling afraid is ten times better than feeling bored, and your book will benefit from your risk-taking."

So whether you officially sign up or simply try it on your own, I suggest following Chris Baty's advice: We’re gonna do this, we’re gonna do this quickly, and it’s gonna be bad.

A couple hours a day is doable. My best friend trained for marathons, putting in at least ten or twelve hours a week. We waste a lot of time, puttering around, sorting the mail, checking social networking, watching the recap of the news, dusting shelves, and all that time can be used for writing.

We have to carve out time. Years ago, when I was raising four kids, working on a graduate degree, participating in organizations, and teaching full time, I still found time to write in the hours while everyone else was sleeping.

We have to carve out space. It's possible to write anywhere. I've written in closets, on rocking boats, in pantries, bathrooms, cars, garages, parks, patios, trains, and airplanes.

We must ignore the inner critic and write fast. It's much more efficient that way.  No matter how bad the writing, we have to keep going because even a small amount of progress each day is motivational.

Besides that inner critic and our perfectionism, we have to let some things go, to say "no" and feel okay about it, and develop some habits that allow us time to write. A writing instructor once told me that dust bunnies under the bed and dishes in the sink prove whether or not someone is serious about being a writer. It's all a matter of priorities.